On a night Republicans projected bravado around their 2024 presidential ticket, Donald Trump started his prime-time address by displaying a rare vulnerability.
In his speech capping off the Republican National Convention as he accepted the party’s nomination for a third consecutive election, Trump recounted Thursday night his attempted assassination five days earlier at a Pennsylvania rally.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he told the crowd at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
After the crowd chanted back, “Yes, you are,” Trump shook his head.
“Thank you,” he said. “But I’m not.”
Then it was back to the usual Trump.
Often, he went off script to attack his political enemies, laud the dismissal of one of his indictments and tick through crowd favorites in the longest nomination acceptance speech in modern American history.
He bragged about the economy and lack of new foreign entanglements during his presidency, and he lambasted President Joe Biden’s administration for its handling of border security, energy, foreign policy and more.
Delivering a script that was intended to offer a unifying message, Trump said he would only use Biden’s name once. But he did so, he said, to say the Democratic incumbent was a worse president than the nation’s prior 10 worst, combined.
As much as Republicans sought to make unity the theme, there were still incendiary figures such as far-right media personality Tucker Carlson on stage Thursday, and plenty of jabs at Democrats. The former president’s son Eric Trump delivered conservative red meat, much like his brother Donald Trump Jr. had a night earlier. Then, the 45th president bemoaned what he described as a politicized justice system and “partisan witch hunts.” He falsely accused Democrats of “cheating on elections.”
Here are five takeaways from the RNC’s final night:
Trump details shooting
In the days leading up to Thursday’s speech, Trump allies have said that the weekend’s assassination attempt had changed the former president.
As he accepted his party’s nomination, Trump seemed more emotional, and solemn, than Americans are use to seeing him as he recounted the “painful” events of his Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The former president narrated the attack in minute detail. As he described when he heard the would-be assassin’s bullet whizz by his ear, photos of the moment appeared on the screens behind him. Later, the screens displayed the moment when, with blood streaming from his ear, he raised a fist and let the crowd know he was OK. He praised the Pennsylvania crowd for not stampeding out of the rally area, which he attributed to their bravery and concern for him.
He insisted, despite chants from the audience, that he wasn’t supposed to be at the convention. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” Trump told the crowd.
Trump also took a moment to honor Corey Comperatore, the former fire chief and Butler rally attendee who was fatally shot while shielding his family during the Butler rally. The former president walked across the stage, where Comperatore’s protective gear was on display, and kissed his helmet. Trump announced that a fundraiser for the families of Comperatore and those injured at the rally had raised more than $6.3 million and asked for a moment of silence in Comperatore’s memory.
The tribute to Comperatore built on a theme of empathy the Trump campaign has cultivated throughout the week with stories of the former president reaching out to Gold Star families and showing compassion to his staff in private moments.
Little mention of Biden (by name)
Trump said Thursday night that he would use Biden’s name only once. (He used it twice: Once to describe Biden as the worst president in history, and again to say it would be the only time it was used.)
It was, in part, because Trump’s campaign wanted to showcase a unified and forward-looking Republican Party — a stark contrast to what Democrats could be facing when they gather in Chicago next month.
But it’s also because Trump might not face Biden again, after all.
As Republicans rallied around Trump, Democrats increasingly sought to throw Biden overboard. A drumbeat of reports from CNN and other news organizations about top Democrats urging Biden to drop his reelection bid amid voters’ concerns about his age grew louder throughout the week.
Thursday night, CNN reported that many senior-ranking White House and campaign officials now privately believe that Biden must abandon his campaign for a second term – and soon.
For Trump, a standard-fare speech will keep the focus just where his campaign wants it: on Biden.
A rare Melania Trump sighting
Melania Trump has kept a low profile since the Trump administration ended. She did not attend the former president’s hush money trial or the first general election debate of this cycle between Trump and Biden.
And although the former first lady appeared at his campaign announcement back in 2022 and has headlined fundraisers for her husband, her presence overall on the campaign trail has been much more muted than what’s normal for spouses of presidential candidates. As recently as March, campaign aides stressed that while Melania Trump would have some kind of role in her husband’s 2024 presidential campaign, it wasn’t clear exactly what that role would be.
In previous election years, Melania Trump delivered speeches at the RNC. This year, she did not, instead appearing for the first time on Thursday night, with an extended classical music soundtrack playing as she walked into the arena.
Trump evidently understood the significance of his wife’s attendance at the RNC. At one point in his speech, he said, “I am deeply honored to be joined by my amazing wife.” He added that the two-page letter she wrote to the country in response to the assassination attempt “captivated so many.”
‘Trumpamania’ running wild
The theme of Thursday night’s RNC lineup in the lead-up to Trump’s speech was testosterone.
And just in case that wasn’t already clear by the time Hulk Hogan took the stage, the professional wrestler left no doubt when he cast aside his blazer, ripped off his T-shirt and declared Trump “a real American hero.”
The night featured Trump introductions from Kid Rock and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, as well as a band blasting 1980s hits and a speech from a Trump golf course manager. There’s a strategic reason for it: Republicans have long won male voters, and the Trump campaign has paid particular attention to trying to narrow Democrats’ massive advantages among non-White men.
But Hogan’s speech might have been one of the most memorable moments of the entire convention — in part because it so perfectly embodied the story Trump has long sold. Hogan briefly broke character to tell the crowd his real name (Terry Bollea) and, much like Trump, described himself as a professional entertainer who couldn’t stay on the political sidelines.
“I’ve known that man for over 35 years, and he’s always been the biggest patriot, and he still is,” he said of Trump. “He’s always told you exactly what he thought, and he still does, brother.”
Then, back into his Hogan character, he finished with a characteristic flourish.
“All you criminals, all you lowlifes, all you scumbags, all you drug dealers and all you crooked politicians need to answer one question, brother,” he said. “What you gonna do when Donald Trump and all the Trumpamaniacs run wild on you, brother?”
A nearly policy-free convention
Political conventions are rarely confused with administrative meetings, so it’s hardly surprising that Republicans in Milwaukee this week avoided wonky policy chatter.
But even by the usual standards, which typically involve acknowledging a problem and then short-handing a solution, the 2024 RNC was perplexing. And especially so on its final night, when the politicians mostly gave way to right-leaning celebrities.
Hogan, for example, was never expected to bring a stash of white papers onstage with him. One of his lesser-noted riffs, though, actually summarized the RNC quite neatly.
“We had a thriving economy, strong borders. We had safe streets. We had peace and respect around the world,” Hogan said, offering a rosy recollection of Trump’s time in office. “But then we lost it all in a blink of an eye. Crime is out of control. The border is out of control. The price of food and gas and housing is out of control. And the only person who can clean this up is Donald Trump.”
In that respect, for all the talk of a “new tone” and calls for unity around very real problems, this RNC was very much like the 2016 edition, when Trump memorably declared of all the country’s ills: “I alone can fix it.”
Just how he will go about lowering grocery bills, home prices, interest rates, gas and food prices – some of which are already coming down – was left to the imagination.
To the extent there is an existing political manifesto for Republicans in 2024, the so-called Project 2025, Trump, his campaign and rank-and-file officials have mostly run away screaming from it.
A nearly 900-page wish list for a second Trump term, the “project” and its calls to further restrict abortion and stamp out climate initiatives while giving the president near total control of government bureaucracy has become a useful political cudgel for Democrats. Trump, in turn, has said he knows “nothing” about it.”
If this past week in Milwaukee was any indication, he might be telling the truth.
